<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=2sCKkj_0nO80bl900" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=2sCKkj_0nO80bl900" width="1280" height="960" ></figure>Vice Beer, an east Vancouver brewery and taproom that crafts aggressive IPAs along with smoothie sours, pastry stouts and lagers, on Thursday will open A Little Vice, a cozy but colorfully cool taproom in a resurgent downtown Vancouver.A Little Vice is the second location for the brewery founded last August by two Clark County couples, Bria Perozzo and Michael Perozzo along with Cameron Johnson and Erica Johnson. They took over the defunct Barlows Brewery after it closed during the pandemic.Michael Perozzo’s Zzeppelin agency in Vancouver had done marketing and branding for Barlows, Bria Perozzo ran Barlows’ taproom, and Cameron Johnson was its brewer, so the partnership made sense. They reinvigorated the brewhouse and tasting room, transforming a sleepy space into Vice’s vibrant, colorful motif.Vice leans heavily into nostalgia, from its beer names to its labels and its taproom decor. The brand approach focuses on the decades that raised the owners – and most of the drinking public right now, Michael Perozzo said.“That’s the ‘80s and ‘90s,” he said. “We worked hard to make sure our place did not pinpoint one decade. You’re not going to walk in and go, gosh this place is straight out of the ‘80s. But there will be some things that make you remember your childhood or that time.”Vice’s vibrant color scheme is a mash-up of that nostalgia, he said, evoking fun times at beach parties and the icons of decades past. Think Miami Vice’s neon blues and pinks, or flamingos meet the Parrotheads of a Jimmy Buffett concert, but all brought together with deft modern design.“When you look at the popular things of then, you see a lot of thematic things that come from sunnier places,” Michael Perozzo said. “Definitely because of Vice, people go, oh Miami Vice. If you look at the show’s imagery or logo, you’re not going to find anything we’ve used at all, but people say it still makes them feel that way.”A Little Vice reflects the look of the original Vice taproom, but that space is TV and movie themed while the new downtown space focuses on music and albums, Perozzo said. A back room, decorated with eight boom boxes around the ceiling, has vintage CDs and tapes that customers can pop into a traditional stereo system.The main taproom is intimate, with about a dozen bar seats in a long, narrow room. The bar has 12 taps serving Vice’s Beer, including two Lukr side-pour taps known for their precise lager pours, along with ciders from Mela Cider of Vancouver.Michael Perozzo describes Vice’s beer approach as having “two extremes.”“From the beginning we want to be pushing the envelope,” he said. “On one, you’ve got the new school of beer, which is double dry hopped, double hazy IPAs and smoothie sours and pastry stouts. On the other extreme, you’ve got the resurgence of lagers, and all the different styles of lager you can make.”They’re not interested in what Perozzo called the “middle ground” of beer styles.“We’re going to leave classic pub styles to other people,” he said.Initial Vice beers included a passion-fruit, orange and guava smoothie sour, two double dry-hopped double IPAs, a mimosa sour, IPAs and a lime-added Mexican lager. Various pilsners followed, including an Italian style and a Czech style.Some of the current beers on tap include Versa IPA, the fourth in Vice’s experimental West Coast IPA series; Breakfast Club, a Mimosa sour; and The Wolverine, an ESB made in collaboration with Anderson Valley Brewing of California (“Collaborations allow us to make styles we normally wouldn’t,” Perozzo said of the ESB.)Opening the downtown tasting room is part of Vice’s business philosophy, which prioritizes selling from its own locations above its distribution efforts.“Pouring beer over your own counter is a more sustainable practice than being in a grocery store, and it has better (profit) margins,” Perozzo said. “As a small brewery, if your plan is to sell a bunch of kegs and cans out the back door, those margins aren’t great. You need butts in seats.”Perozzo said Vice’s sales are exceeding expectations.“We targeted 700 barrels for our first full year, and we’re well over that at the halfway point of the year,” he said.The original Vice is home to the El Viejón Taquería y Mariscos Mexican food truck, but the tight quarters at A Little Vice don’t allow a truck or kitchen. Instead, the taproom has a partnership with Slow Fox, a chili parlor on the same block whose QR ordering code will be a part of A Little Vice’s menus. And Derek Saner and Nicole Saner, the wife-and-husband owners of Slow Fox, plan to work with Vice’s owners on events in the restaurant’s commons area, such as a party for the Cruise the Couve car event this Saturday, July 15, in downtown Vancouver.Perozzo said such events and their energy, along with the area’s walkability, are part of the resurgence of restaurant and pub life in this area — from the modern Waterfront development along the nearby Columbia River to the eclectic and vibrant mix downtown. Nearby breweries include Loowit, Heathen, Brothers Cascadia’s Evergreen Pub, Ruse, Trap Door, Doomsday, along with Thirsty Sasquatch, Tap Union Freehouse and Waterfront taprooms.“I’m excited to be part of that,” he said. “On Friday and Saturday night around here, people are out, and they’re not just sitting in one place. It’s happening. There’s stuff to do.”<h2>IF YOU GO</h2><ul><li>What: A Little Vice, Vice Beer’s second location</li><li>Where: 701 Main St., Vancouver</li><li>When: Opens Thursday, July, 12. Hours: 4-9 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday, noon-10 p.m. Friday-Saturday, noon-7 p.m. Sunday</li><li>Facebook: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/vicebeer">facebook.com/vicebeer</a></li><li>Instagram: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/vicebeer/">@vicebeer</a></li></ul>— Andre Meunier; sign up for my weekly newsletter <a href="https://link.oregonlive.com/join/6fk/signup">Oregon Brews and News</a>, and follow me on <a href="https://www.instagram.com/oregonianbeerguy/">Instagram, where I’m @oregonianbeerguy</a>.</div></body>

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Vice Beer ready to open A Little Vice taproom in downtown Vancouver

Vice Beer, an east Vancouver brewery and taproom that crafts aggressive IPAs along with smoothie sours, pastry stouts and lagers, on Thursday will open A Little Vice, a cozy but colorfully cool taproom in a resurgent downtown Vancouver. A Little Vice is the second location for the brewery founded last...